lifenet | A call for help~

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A call for help~

Alright... it kinda goes against everything I know to do this but the Bunny god needs our help and I'm not going to sit around here and be useless.

[He sounds pissed of and upset but he's here and he's asking dammit.]

Anyone here have enough healing magic to patch up a puncture wound in someone's abdomen? Like a deep one?

And assuming I can get a hold of anyone we've got shit to clear out.

Hey, Tim! Lets find some shit for that restaurant.

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Think I don't know that!?

[He doesn't mean to snap and he flinches as soon as the words leave his mouth. Fuck he really should just stop talking.]

I just wanted to understand... both sides, I guess. It wasn't about making you forget it was about getting you to talk in the first place. You'd say more to a goddamn stranger than to me unless there was something you had to lord over me.

[And that has his breath catching, amber eyes flashing wide for a second as he realizes the hole he's backed himself into and then he drops his gaze, looks away. Oh Ardyn had the biggest thing to hold over his head now and he'd just gone and put his foot in his mouth all over again.]

[Ardyn finally pulled his hand away, black miasma disappearing from his skin and clothes as he pulled the gloves back on to cover scarred and calloused hands.]

...So what happened?

You made a lot of metaphors and found something to lord over me anyway.

[Maybe he shouldn't have started this. This was stupid and awful and Ardyn was fine now, he should just go meet Tim and forget this shit too.

This would be so much easier if it wasn't like talking to two different people.]

I'm painfully good at that, unfortunately.

[Ardyn sighed, adjusting his hat in the following silence as if seeking something to do with his hands. Then, at length:]

...How was he, when you saw him? Gilgamesh.

Yeah. [A huff and just as he's about to make his excuses that question catches him off guard. Gilgamesh?]

Disappointed, I think. [A shrug and he shakes his head. He didn't really understand then. Maybe Gilgamesh understood that he'd come to eventually. Maybe that was why he had let Gladio go.]

By me and the fact that he didn't get to see the Marshal again, I'd say. Talked awfully fondly of a guy that took his arm.

... [Of all the unbelievable things, a small and tired smile gradually crossed Ardyn's face.]

Sounds about right--he always did have high standards. I imagine having his arm taken off would have done little but impress him.

[It's only now that he realizes why Ardyn is asking.]

You knew him. Before... [And now he's scrambling, trying to remember something else he could say about the spirit. It was a dramatic turning point in his life, it held weight, certainly, but it had also been over a decade ago.]

The arm thing didn't really mean anything for him, y'know. I mean physically it wasn't there but I don't know how much of him was. He... he definitely used both arms to kick my ass for a good portion of that fight.

I did. Fairly well, I would say--or enough to not be surprised. I don't know what happened to him in the last two millennia, but persisting through sheer stubbornness is very like him.

Maybe that's why he let me pass then. I mean... I only really started to get the gist of what he was trying to say towards the end of that fight. I didn't really get it until years later.

When I wasn't serving as Shield, oddly enough.

...What was it he told you?

That I couldn't really be worthy of serving my King as Shield if I was afraid.

Fear and doubt begets death alone

If I can't accept my faults then I'm only gonna get my King killed... If I couldn't accept the fact that I am not enough to protect Noct alone then I was only going to put him in danger. There's a reason it's always been me and Ignis. I can take a blow for him but I can't protect him... not the way Iggy does. Which, honestly scares the shit out of me most times.

[Hell, he'd been trying to avoid actually bringing Ignis up.] ]

[Ardyn didn't answer at first, turning the concept over in his head for a minute.]

...The Shield of the Founder failed once before, terribly so. When he was needed most, when one whom he swore to protect was in greatest danger...the Blademaster was nowhere to be found. I've no way of knowing why, of course. But I wonder, perhaps, if he wished to prevent such basic human faults from causing history to repeat.

Maybe...

He was supposed to protect you, wasn't he? No wonder he was afraid if that's the sort of shit you were doing. [He gestures to Ardyn's hip where the wound he'd taken from Gladio had been.]

Killing yourself for other people and what would the crown have done to you on top of that? Maybe he thought he was protecting you.

He didn't...know. I didn't tell anyone. At--at least I don't think I did, I can't always remember that far back.

[Ardyn glanced away like he was trying to recall a long-forgotten memory, voice turning distant.]

...If anyone had known...it would have been a catastrophe. People were already afraid and struggling just to survive in the wake of the Astral War; I was all they had. The only reassurance that things would ever improve, the only sign of dawn after the darkest hour. If I had told anyone I wasn't truly curing the scourge...

[He shook his head, as if trying to pull himself out of his own thoughts.]

I don't...remember when it changed. I remember the Crystal rejecting me, choosing my brother instead. I know I was executed more times than I care to count, and I know Gilgamesh wasn't there.

I didn't--I didn't want this. I didn't ask to be an eternal monster, I just...wanted...to help people.

[Oh he knows that look, the distance in Ardyn's expression as he speaks, the way he seemed to be reassuring himself that what he knew to be truth was the truth.]

Hey... hey. [Gladio shifts up onto his knees, moves a little closer so he can gently guide Ardyn's hand to Hresvelgr's head. Smooth feathers under his hand, a brief fumble in Gladio's pack and there's the smell of sand and fresh crushed herbs. Things that he hoped would counter what and where he thought he was.]

It's alright... Hey, come back, yeah?

[There's more to discuss there, surely there is, but it's not something he's about to try to continue on like a normal conversation when Ardyn's clearly on the verge of get lost in things better left in the past.]

You did help people. You just helped me, remember?

Wh--what?

[His hand was as cold as a walking corpse, but if noting else Hresvelgr didn't seem to mind. She nuzzled up against his hand and nipped lightly at his sleeve to get Ardyn's attention, almost like she was used to this particular situation. It took a second, but Ardyn blinked unnaturally yellow eyes a few times and started to focus back on Gladio.]

I...right, yes. Are...you alright?

[Good, good. He sat back on his heels again, sighing in relief when Ardyn starts tracking again.]

I'm fine, thanks to you. [And isn't that weird to say. But it's not as strange as this genuine feeling of worry and concern he felt for the other man. It was so much easier when things were just black and white.]

Do you still want to talk about Gilgamesh? [He doesn't want to leave things unfinished but he doesn't want to push either.]

I just...wanted to know how he was. That's all. I'd heard the legends of the spirits in Taelpar, but I rather assumed none of them would be thrilled to see me if I went myself, Gilgamesh least of all.

Maybe not... I think he might've been more willing than you'd imagine though.

...Possibly. But with the way I am, it would never have gone well.

... can't argue that.

[Even if he wants to right now, even if it might have made Ardyn feel better it would be a lie.]

Sorry.

You don't have anything to apologize for. I'm the one still causing nothing but trouble for you even here.

That's... not true. [Though the way his voice wavers says more to the truth of Ardyn's words than any protest he makes.]

...You know you don't need to spare my feelings, right?

I know I'm only causing trouble for you. But I don't want to hurt him.

I don't want to hurt anyone. [Grumbled and frustrated, his hands thread up into his hair with something that's nearly a growl.]

Even you... somehow. Weird as that is.

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